What kind of fucked-up Forest-Gump accent does Randall have?
xkcd #2907: Schwa
Submitted 2 months ago by randomaccount43543@lemmy.world to xkcd@lemmy.world
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/schwa_2x.png
Comments
TheBananaKing@lemmy.world 2 months ago
WoahWoah@lemmy.world 2 months ago
?
TheBananaKing@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Most English accents make a strong distinction between most of the voewls in that sentence. If you relentlessly turn everything to schwa, you get a cross between the aforementioned Forest Gump and “Ermagerd, shers”.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Isn’t this only true for a forest gump accent?
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Midwestern possibly. It works with my accent at least
Deconceptualist@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I bet these sentences sound super weird if you try to pronounce them without using any schwas.
teft@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You would probably just sound like a non-native speaker. I assume it would be similar to weak forms and how weak forms are usually absent from non-native english speech.
NoRodent@lemmy.world 2 months ago
As a non-native speaker, I was kinda confused at first by this comic because in my head the vowels definitely didn’t sound all the same. But I personally consider pronunciation of vowels in English to be one of the greatest mysteries in the universe, so no wonder.
WoahWoah@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Non-native to where? These aren’t all schwa in all English-speaking nations. They’re not even all schwa in all US dialects.
Language is crazy.
bstix@feddit.dk 2 months ago
Great… now it reads like Abu from Simpsons.
NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth 2 months ago
Do you mean Apu?
Abu was the monkey in Aladdin
KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Sounds like you’re still learning english
ornery_chemist@mander.xyz 2 months ago
Don’t a lot of these use the “strut” vowel (/ʌ/) and not schwa (/ə/) per se?
My transcription would be
/wʌts ʌp? wʌz dʌg gənə kʌm? dʌg lʌvz bɹʌntʃ. nʌʔʌ dʌgz stʌk kəz əv ə tʌnəl əbstɹʌkʃən. ə tɹʌk dʌmpt ə tʌn əv ʌnjənz. ʊχ./
lugal@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They merge in many accents merge these two sounds as Dr Geoff Lindsey explains here.
ornery_chemist@mander.xyz 2 months ago
Thank you for reminding me of this channel, I’d forgotten about it.
ornery_chemist@mander.xyz 2 months ago
The point about stress is interesting. I’ve been playing with pronouncing the phrase, and almost everything tends toward [ɐ] when I speak the syllables one at a time, even the ones I marked with and pronounce as a schwa in normal speech. The notable exceptions are the final schwas in “obstruction” and “onions”, which tend toward [ɪ], and the -nel of “tunnel”, which is something like [nɫ] (vocalic ɫ) ~ [nəɫ].
TheBananaKing@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You use the same vowel for ‘what’ as you do for ‘up’?
:confused Australian noises:
WoahWoah@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Oh you’re Australian. Yeah, most dialects in the US say “what” and “up” with a schwa.
Wut up. The ‘u’ vowel sound in “up” is the same one in “what” in most American dialects.
ornery_chemist@mander.xyz 2 months ago
yup
mihnt@lemmy.world 2 months ago
whut?
TheBananaKing@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Australian version is similar:
/wɒts ʌp? wʌz dʌg gənə kʌm? dʌg lʌvz bɹʌntʃ. nʌʔʌ dʌgz stʌk kəz ɒv ə tʌnəl ɒbstɹʌkʃən. ə tɹʌk dʌmpt ə tʌn ɒv ʌnjənz. əχ./
Betch@lemmy.world 2 months ago
ləl
hakase@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Under some phonological analyses of English. Most phonologists I know would probably use wedge for most of these, since they’re stressed.
itsnicodegallo@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I came here to say this. A bunch of these vowels are definitely pronounced with a wedge. Even tried intentionally pronuncing the stressed vowels with a schwa, and it’s noticeably, jarringly off.
HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world 2 months ago
As a northern Englishman, this doesn’t work for me
HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Although if I say it fast and lazily I guess it kinda does
ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Going through the comments, I’ve just learned so much about what makes my accent distinct and that uh and uh are apparently different
can@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Uh?
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 2 months ago
If I’m understanding it correctly, the name Schwartz has no schwa
lugal@lemmy.world 2 months ago
True
lseif@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
look closer. its there
pastermil@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Took me a goddamn while. Goddamn English and the lack of phonetic spelling!
fidodo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I was a little slow too because some of those words have other possible pronunciations
Deebster@programming.dev 1 month ago
Which is why we shouldn’t have phonetic spelling!
Worx@lemmynsfw.com 2 months ago
Not in my accent
Darthjaffacake@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Nor mine 😥
Darthjaffacake@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Nor mine😥
MinusPi@yiffit.net 2 months ago
Holy shit that’s impressive
dojan@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I love this one. Fucked with my head a bit.
Duranie@literature.cafe 2 months ago
Aaron earned an iron urn + Baltimore accent.
That video makes me cackle every damn time 🤣.
toynbee@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This is reminiscent of a brief storyline from the Scrubs season that never happened.
amanaftermidnight@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The trend of dropping all vowels implies schwa subsuming them all.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Tangentially related to getting stuck in a tunnel obstructed by onions: one time I was stuck in a traffic jam on I-95 in Philadelphia, traffic completely stopped for about three hours. Eventually we got moving again and passed the source of the jam. A semi carrying a load of honeydew melons had caught fire. I would have thought melons contained enough water to prevent them from burning, but that was not the case.
user134450@feddit.de 2 months ago
Maybe those were illegal smoke and honey melons 🤔
RustyNova@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Would love hearing someone saying it out loud. I can’t do it myself
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Yet it doesn’t have its own letter!
Chekhovs_Gun@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Hey Splay. Shiggity shiggity schwa?
CptEnder@lemmy.world 2 months ago
What’s my name? Shmifty five.
kometes@lemmy.world 2 months ago
obstrucTION
Lux@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Ub struck shun
kometes@lemmy.world 2 months ago
dictionary.cambridge.org/us/…/obstruction
/əbˈstrʌk.ʃən/
ClockworkOtter@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This is like when my friend from CA discovered merry, marry, Mary except it’s everything.
Carlo@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Quick note: might be funnier if your friend was from MD.
Kolrami@lemmy.world 2 months ago
There’s a cool, old video about this. I’m not sure if this is what you’re referencing:
lugal@lemmy.world 2 months ago
We, with my strong German accent: chuckle I’m in danger
Siethron@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Doesn’t the ‘nel’ in tunnel break this?
Wolf_359@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Maybe it depends on where you’re from but I pronounce “tuh-nuhl”
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 2 months ago
Really? I think it’s supposed to be silent, not a schwa. Did you mean “tuh-nl”?
TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 2 months ago
dammit Randall stick to physics
actually this is pretty fun even if wrong, keep making linguistics things
randomaccount43543@lemmy.world 2 months ago
explainxkcd.com/2907
captainastronaut@seattlelunarsociety.org 2 months ago
Thank you!
Nighed@sffa.community 2 months ago
the link to the wikipedia page with the audio clip really helped, made no sense without that.
brbposting@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I had no idea what the name of the sound was so I credit being a native speaker and reading the comic out loud with my understanding.
Do read it out loud - the more you exaggerate it the more fun it is.
Cannot believe how smart this guy is. If 10% of the planet were like Randall we would’ve cured cancer like the second time somebody got diagnosed with it.
ArtificialLink@lemy.lol 2 months ago
Where is the audio clip?
sanguinepar@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Never have I needed the explanation more than with this one.
ikidd@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I still have no clue.
Prandom_returns@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Almost all of that conversation is using the “uh” as a ‘replacement’ for all the vowels.
Whuht’s Uhp, Dugh.
That “uh” sound is called “shwa”